pilots were killed. A song "Ogromnoe nebo" was written in the memory of Soviet pilots. 13 April Royal Iraqi Air Force de Havilland DH.104 Dove 1, RF392, crashes near Basra, Iraq, on flight from Baghdad during a Haboob, killing all seven on board, including President of Iraq Colonel Abd-al-Salam Mohammad Arif (8 February 1963 – 13 April 1966), and two ministers. Some sources report this accident as a helicopter crash. 6 May USMC McDonnell RF-4B Phantom II, BuNo 153090, of VMCJ-3, MCAS El Toro, California, on out-and-back familiarization flight from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, is lost ~2 miles off of Del Mar, California in the Pacific when the pilot gets into an aerobatic maneuver stall. Both crew eject. Cause of the accident was pilot factor in that he failed to control the aircraft properly resulting in a spin. He then failed to execute properly the spin recovery technique. His instrument scan and awareness of what his airplane was doing were also seriously deficient. Wreckage discovered in 1994 by the UB88 dive group. 4 July A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion, flying from Floyd Bennett Field, New York, to Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois, disappears from Chicago radar at 1444 hrs., and plunges into a rural wooded area near Battle Creek, Michigan, killing all four on board. The dead are identified as Lt. William E. Xiques, Staten Island, New York; Lt. John Patrick Fitzmaurice III, Waterbury, Connecticut; Aviation Machinist's Mate 2/c Charles J. Lurvey, Meriden, Connecticut; and Aviation Machinist's Mate 3/c Larry W. Battsen, Santa Clara, California. The impact digs a trench 12 to 15 feet deep and 50 to 75 feet long, and the explosion scatters small parts over three miles away which rain down for several minutes. The Orion was due to pick up eight officers and enlisted men at NAS Glenview at 1600 hrs. and fly them to Naval Air Station Moffett Field, California. 8 June Second North American XB-70A Valkyrie prototype, 62-0207, crashes at Edwards Air Force Base, California, following a mid-air collision with a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, NASA 813, previously 013, while the aircraft were in close formation for a photo shoot at the behest of General Electric. The pilot of the F-104N, Dr. Joseph A. Walker, late of the X-15 program, and Maj. Carl Cross, the copilot of the XB-70, are killed. 18 July A fuel tank on a Boeing B-52D Stratofortress of the 509th Bombardment